Nurse, a forward for the Canadian women’s hockey team, fired a wrist shot that bounced off United States goaltender Maddie Rooney’s right shoulder and found a small hole on the short side of the net. It proved to be the difference-maker in a 2-1 contest against the two best teams at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Nurse’s goal at 14:56 of the second period gave Canada a 2-0 lead. U.S. forward KendallCoyne scored early in the third period but Canadian goaltender Genevieve Lacasse withstood an onslaught of U.S. shots – stopping 44 – to preserve the win.

“We played a full 60 minutes and I think we have some things to improve on, but we’re definitely confident in where we’re at and where we’re going,” Nurse told reporters after the game.

Nurse’s tally was her first Olympic goal. She was named to the Canadian team after she completed a collegiate career at the NCAA Division I University of Wisconsin where she tallied 76 goals and 61 assists in 150 games.

She’s the Badgers’ eighth all-time leading scorer, keeping company with the likes of U.S. stars Brianna Decker and Hilary Knight, who are also playing in PyeongChang seeking Olympic gold.

Her father was feeling somewhat anxious before Canada’s match against its arch-rival for international women’s hockey supremacy. He felt exalted when his daughter’s shot went in the net.

“I’m still trying to come down,” he told me between periods following the goal.

Michelle and Roger Nurse cheered on their daughter, Canadian women’s Olympic hockey player Sarah Nurse, at the Canada-U.S. game Thursday. Sarah Nurse scored her first Olympic goal in that contest (Photo/William Douglas/Color of Hockey).

For Roger and his wife, Michelle Nurse, watching their daughter represent Canada in Pyeongchang triggered memories of how it all began.

“We did a lot of long car rides (to tournaments), me and Sarah. At one point, we’re driving all over North America,” Roger Nurse told me. “For me and Sarah in the car, we laugh, tell a lot of jokes, trying to make the ride shorter. That’s kind of what we’ve been doing since she was 7 years old.”

Sarah reflected on her hockey journey, too. She posted a tweet prior to the Olympic hockey tournament thanking her dad for doing the things that enabled her to play the game.

Thank you for giving me every opportunity to reach me dreams. For driving all over North America & for working nonstop to put every penny into my hockey career.To the one who put me on those double blades at 3 and never let me look back.. Dad, thank you ❤️#WeAllPlayForCanadapic.twitter.com/hVxWm1NaXx

But for all her success, Sarah and her parents never fully knew where she stood with Hockey Canada. Last year was Sarah’s first centralizaton – or tryout – camp with Canada’s national team from which the Olympic squad was picked.

“There are some kids who just smooth through – they’re the best player, they go to every camp, every event, every Four Nations (tournament), every worlds tournament,” Roger Nurse told me. “For Sarah, it was kind of a fight. No matter how good you thought she was, no matter how well you thought she was doing, it was a fight.”

“And, you, know, she’s still standing, and that’s a great testament to her ability to fight through it,” he added.

Part of that resilience comes from being part of a highly-competitivefamily. Sarah’s cousins are Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse and University of Connecticut women’s basketball point guard Kia Nurse, who played hoops for Canada at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Sarah’s younger brothers are hockey players: Issac Nurse plays right wing for the HamiltonBulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League.Elijah Nurse is a left wing for the Dundas Blues of Canada’s Provincial Junior Hockey League.

Her father was a renowned Canadian lacrosse player. Her uncle Richard Nurse – Darnell and Kia’s father – was a wide receiver for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CanadianFootball League. Former National Football League quarterback Donovan McNabb is an uncle.

It’s something that Roger Nurse’s children occasionally have to remind him of when he’s dispensing hockey advice.

“I’d say something to her about a game she’d play at Wisconsin, she’d look at me and say ‘Dad, you never played a game of NCAA hockey,'” Roger Nurse said. “And Issac would say to me ‘Dad, you never played one game in the Ontario Hockey League.’ Point taken.”

These days, Roger Nurse keeps his advice simple.

“‘Go have fun, step up, and do what you have to do,'” he tells them.

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Nurse, the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurseand University ofConnecticut basketball point guard Kia Nurseand niece of former National FootballLeague quarterback Donovan McNabb, tallied 76 goals and 61 assists in 150 games for the Badgers from 2013-14 to 2016-17.

She was the Badgers’ second-leading scorer in her senior year with 25 goals and 28 assists in 39 games.

Nurse led NCAA Division I women’s hockey players with three hat tricks last season, including the first three-goal game by a Badgers player against the University ofMinnesota last December. Nurse is the 22nd Wisconsin hockey player in program history to reach 100 career points.

The 5-foot-8 Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, native brings a wealth of international experience to Team Canada. She was a member of the country’s gold medal-winning team at the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s Under-18 Championship in Helsinki, Finland, in 2013.

Congratulations to University of Wisconsin women’s hockey forward Sarah Nurse for reaching the 100-point mark in her collegiate career.

She achieved the milestone on a third-period goal that helped cement the Badgers’ 6-0 win over Bemidji State University in Madison, Wis., Sunday. It was Nurse’s second goal of the game and her 11th of the 2016-17 season.

“It’s a pretty cool accomplishment, it was actually really cool that (Wisconsin senior forward Sydney McKibbon) made that pass out to me, I think that brought it all back to where it kind of all started, so I think that was really cool,” Nurse said after the game.”

Nurse, the Badgers’ leading scorer this season, is the 22nd player in the university’s history to tally 100 points. While getting into the history books is nice, Nurse said there’s one achievement that matters more to her: winning an NCAA hockey championship.

“This is my last year, so I kind of wanted to come in and have a big impact on this team,” she said. “I want to ultimately win the big title at the end of the year. I came into this season with a lot of confidence.”

Nurse is the cousin of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse and Kia Nurse, a star guard for the 2015 and 2016 NCAA champion University ofConnecticut women’s basketball team and a member of Canada’s women’s hoops squad that competed at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

She’s also the niece of former National Football League quarterback DonovanMcNabb.

Nurse was a co-captain for Canada’s U-22 squad that played a mini-series against the United States in August. The Hamilton, Ont., native led Wisconsin’s women’s team in scoring last season with 25 goals and 13 assists in 36 games.

While hockey fans anxiously await next month’s World Cup of Hockeyand the start of the 2016-17 National Hockey League season in October, there’s quality hockey underway in Calgary where women’s teams from the United States and Canada are resuming one of the fiercest rivalries in sports.

U of Wisconsin forward Sarah Nurse is one of Team Canada’s captains (Photo/Hockey Canada).

There’s little friendly in the friendlies that the U.S. and Canadian Under-22 and Under-18 teams will play in the series, which started Wednesday night.

The series has all the ingredients, including talented players of color and, of course, a Nurse.

Forward Sarah Nurse is one of the captains for Canada’s U-22 squad. The Hamilton, Ont., native led the University of Wisconsin women’s team in scoring last season with 25 goals and 13 assists in 36 games.

Nurse and Tse will face Team USA’sKelsey Koelzer, a defenseman from Princeton University. The junior from Horsham, Pa., notched 17 goals and 16 assists in 33 games for the Tigers last season and finished second on the team with 8 game-winning goals.

Her game balances with offense and defense: she took 122 shots and blocked 61 pucks last season. The New York Riveters chose Koelzer in the first round of the 2016 NationalWomen’s Hockey LeagueDraft last month.

on its U-18 squad. She’s a blue-liner for the Toronto Jr. Aeros of the Provincial Women’s Hockey League.

Mitchell tallied 3 goals and 11 assists in 34 games for the Aeros last season. She collected a Bronze Medal playing for Ontario Blue at the 2015 National Women’s Under-18 Championship in Huntsville, Ont.

The never-ending sports tour for the Nurse family – one of Canada’s most athletic and competitive clans – continues.

Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse.

Kia Nurse, the sister of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse, looks to up her bragging rights over her big bro by bringing home an Olympic medal from Rio de Janeiro as a member of Canada’s basketball team.

“Obviously we have the goal to go in there and get a medal,” she told Canada’s 570 News. “I think need to play really hard together and peak at the right time. So I see our success as playing our best basketball over the last four years at the Olympics.”

Kia’s one of the Great White North’s best basketball players and one of the best collegiate players in the United States. She helped guide the University ofConnecticut’s storied women’s basketball team to NCAA championships last season and in 2015.

Kia and Darnell come from a highly athletic family. Father RichardNurse was a wide receiver for the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats; his wife, Cathy, was a stellar basketball player for Canada’s McMasterUniversity.

With the games starting this weekend, couldn't be more proud of my little sister playing in her… https://t.co/c7oA0PmyA8

Their older daughter, Tamika, played basketball at the University of Oregon and Bowling Green State University. Richard Nurse’s brother, Roger, was a standout lacrosse player in Canada. Their sister, Raquel, was a Syracuse University hoops standout and is married to former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Sarah Nurse, daughter of Roger Nurse and cousin of Kia and Darnell, is a forward on the University of Wisconsin’s women’s hockey team that played in the 2016 NCAAWomen’s Frozen Four tournament.

Each player is chasing his dream for National Hockey League stardom, climbing professional hockey’s ladder at his own pace – or that dictated by the team that drafted him.

Jones, taken by the Nashville Predators with the fourth overall pick of the draft, hasn’t spent a day in the minor leagues. But after he spent more than two seasons in Music City, the Predators traded him last week to the ColumbusBlue Jackets for talented but enigmatic center Ryan Johansen.

The swap from Nashville, currently sixth in the NHL’s Western Conference, to Columbus, dwelling in the NHL Eastern Conference cellar, wasn’t a knock on Jones’ play.

The Blue Jackets expect big things from the Texas-born son of former National Basketball Association forward Popeye Jones. In Nashville, Seth Jones was the student to defensive master Shea Weber.

In 40 games with the Predators, Jones tallied 1 goal and 10 assists and averaged 19:42 minutes on ice per game.

With Columbus, he’ll play more minutes and see more power play time and penalty-killing action under demanding Head Coach John Tortorella. He’ll go from being one of the guys on Nashville’s blue line to being The Man on the Blue Jackets back end.

“He’s going to get a lot bigger role with our team,”Blue Jackets General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen told reporters last week. “He’s 21 years old and he’s got the future ahead of him and a lot of room for growth and development. We believe he’s a good two-way defenseman that can add some offense to our game.”

Ironically, one of the last things Jones saw in Nashville was the player he was traded for as he and Johansen passed each other at the airport. Jones expressed excitement about the new opportunity in Columbus.

“They made it pretty clear that they’re going to throw a little bit more at me than I’ve been used to getting,” Jones told reporters in Columbus. “I’m excited and ready to take on the challenge.”

Nurse believed he was NHL-ready from the moment he slipped on an Oilers jersey on draft day. But the team’s brain trust thought otherwise and sent him back to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, his junior team inthe Ontario Hockey League, for the 2013-14 season. He went back to the Soo again in 2014-15.

He was assigned to the Bakersfield Condors, the Olilers’ AHL affiliate,after this season’s

After being promoted from the AHL, Darnell Nurse is averaging 21 minutes per game.

training camp and was called up to the parent club after some of its defensemen suffered injuries.

Since then, Nurse has tallied 2 goals and 5 assists while averaging 21 minutes of ice time per game in 34 games. He’s also added a little toughness to an offensively-talented but grit-challenged Oilers lineup. He’s amassed 19 penalty minutes, five of them coming from a fight against Milan Lucic, the Los Angeles Kings’ physically-imposing and feared veteran forward.

Some thought the bout was too much too soon for the rookie Nurse. He didn’t.

“My mum was like, ‘What are you doing?’ My dad said he was proud of me,” Nurse told The Edmonton Journal. “This (fighting) is something I’m going to have to do the way I play.”

Madison Bowey is only a two-hour drive from where he hopes to eventually be: With the Washington Capitals. The team took Bowey in the second round with the 53rd pick of the 2013 draft.

After he captained his Western Hockey League Kelowna Rockets to the MasterCardMemorial Cup Final last season and teamed up with Nurse on the blue line to help a diverse Team Canada win the Gold Medal at the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship, the Capitals sent Bowey to the AHL’s HersheyBears.

He has 2 goals, 11 assists, and 24 penalty minutes in 33 games with the Bears.

Madison Bowey hopes to be an impact player with the AHL Hershey Bears – and eventually with the Washington Capitals (Photo/Courtesy JustSports Photography).

Bears Head Coach Troy Mann agrees.

“From the bench as you watch him play, when he’s moving the puck and limiting his turnovers, he’s having a good game,” Mann told PennLive. “Like any young defenseman, there are nights where his gap control might not be as good as we need it to be, or his defensive-zone coverage. But I think he’s progressing the way we all thought he would. He’s a second-round pick that’s going to need some nurturing in the AHL for a couple seasons.”

Jordan Subban was chosen in the fourth-round of the 2013 draft by the Vancouver Canucks with the 115th pick. His older brother, MontrealCanadiens superstar defenseman P.K. Subban, declared before the draft that Jordan was a better, more cerebral blueliner than he is.

Like his big brother, Jordan is about offense from the back end. The 5-foot-9 defenseman notched 25 goals and 27 assists for the Ontario Hockey League’s Belleville Bulls last season.

He’s continuing his offensive ways in his first season with for the Utica Comets, the Canucks’ AHL farm team, where he has 5 goals and 14 assists in 29 games.

“The (AHL) is a little more skilled than I thought it was going to be,” Subban told Utica’s Observer-Dispatch in November. “It was a bit of an adjustment. There are a lot of good players…I think I’ve taken a big step in my zone, but I still have work to do.”

Jonathan-Ismael Diaby will be the first to admit that he’s still very much a work in progress. At 6-foot-5 and 223 pounds, he’s described himself as “bigger, taller and slower” compared to other hockey players.

Nashville Predators 2013 draft pick Jonathan Diaby (left) working on improving his game with the AHL Milwaukee Admirals (Photo/Milwaukee Admirals).

But the Predators love his size – a “monster,” one scout called him – and his ruggedness. Nashville took him in the third round with the 64th pick in the 2013 draft.

Since then, the former Victoriaville Tigres defenseman has bounced between the Milwaukee Admirals, the Preds’ AHL affiliate, and CincinnatiCyclones, Nashville’s ECHL farm team.

The son of a soccer player from the Ivory Coast, Diaby is scoreless in five AHL games this season but has 21 penalty minutes. He has 1 assist and 11 penalty minutes in 17 ECHL games.

“I just want to show more consistency and show that I’m more poised and more in control of the game,” Diaby told The Tennesseanduring the Predators’ training camp in September. “As a hockey player, you come to training camp, you want to make the team, but it’s a learning experience. I’ve still got a lot to learn and a lot to improve on. The AHL’s a great league.”

Like this:

Defenseman Darnell Nursecame straight outta Bakersfield to score the first goal of his National Hockey League career Tuesday night.

Edmonton’s Darnell Nurse.

Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers’ 2013 first-round draft pick, was called up from the Bakersfield Condors – the Oil’s American Hockey League farm team in California – and inserted into the lineup in a 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.

He responded to the promotion by scoring on a slap shot at 3:38 of the third period that gave the Oilers a brief 3-2 lead. Defenseman Oscar Klefbom and left wing Benoit Pouliotassisted on the tally.

In 19:20 of ice time, Nurse fired two shots, had three hits and two blocked shots.

The Oilers assigned Nurse to start the 2015-16 hockey season in Bakersfield. There, he had no goals, one assist, and seven penalty minutes in six games for the Condors.

The former captain for the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, Nurse helped power Team Canada to the Gold Medal at the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Toronto and Montreal.

He had one goal, no assists, and a plus-minus rating of +8 in seven tournament games and opponents didn’t score while he was on the ice. He was named one of Canada’s three best players in the tourney.

Nurse hails from an athletic family. His younger sister, Kia Nurse, is a point guard for the 2015 NCAA Division I champion University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team and a member of the Canadian women’s national team. Older sister Tamika played basketball for the University of Oregon and Bowling Green State University.

Their father Richard Nurse, was a wide receiver for the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats; their mother Cathy was a basketball standout at Canada’s McMaster University.

When he was younger, Darnell Nurse spent time with his uncle, former PhiladelphiaEagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. A cousin, Sarah Nurse, plays hockey for the University of Wisconsin.

Hockey playoffs are in full swing and players of color are at the center of the action.

From the National Hockey League to Canada’s major junior leagues to the alphabet jumble of various minor leagues, players of color are providing heroics and highlights in the early rounds.

Washington Capitals’ Joel Ward getting it done in playoffs – again.

Washington Capitals right wing Joel Ward further enhanced his reputation as a clutch playoff performer with his game-winning goal against the New York Rangers with 1.3 seconds left in the third period in the first game of a second-round series opener at Madison Square Garden.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Ward’s buzzer-beater against Rangers all-world netminder Henrik Lundqvist marked only the third time that a winning goal had been scrored in an NHL playoff game with less than two seconds remaining.

Game-ending heroics are becoming old hat for Ward. He’s got three playoff walk-off (or skate-offs) goals, the most dramatic being a Game 7 overtime winner that vanquished the Boston Bruins from the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2012.

Anaheim Ducks left wing Emerson Etem is yet to score an NHL playoff game-ending goal. But he did recently notched a highlight reel goal in the Ducks’ opening round series against the Winnipeg Jets that melted the “White Out” of Jets fans inside the MTS Centre and drew oohs and aahs from amazed teammates.

Emerson Etem eats up Jets defenders on goal.

Born in Long Beach, California, Etem wasn’t much of a scorer during the 2014-15 regular season, tallying only 5 goals and 5 assists in 45 games for the Ducks. But he has 2 goals in five games in the still-young playoff season – and loads of confidence after undressing the Winnipeg Jets.

A few rungs below the NHL, forward Connor McDavid is getting his share of snazzy playoff goals for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The likely Number One pick in June’s 2015 NHL Draft is the Main Man in Erie, the straw that stirs the Pennsylvania-based franchise.

But folks lucky enough to catch the Otters’ playoff series against the Sault Ste.Marie Greyhounds on the NHL Network couldn’t help but notice Erie forward Nick Baptiste. He potted 4 goals in a crucial Game 4 against the Greyhounds, a team that featured defensemen Darnell Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers’ 2013 first-round draft pick, and Anthony DeAngelo, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 2014 first-round draft selection.

“It was one of those nights where you just try to shoot as much as you can, and they go in,” Baptiste said after the game. “Fortunate enough to get the goals, but more importantly, the win.”

Erie won the game 7-5 and eliminated the Soo from the playoffs four games to two. The series was a high-scoring affair that offered a glimpse of the future for the downtrodden Buffalo Sabres.

Sure, a bad Ping-Pong ball bounce or two in the NHL Draft Lottery cost the Sabres – the league’s worst team in the 2014-15 season – the first-overall pick and a shot at McDavid in June’s draft.

But with the Number Two pick in the upcoming draft, Buffalo is poised to get a great player in Boston University forward Jack Eichel. And more help is on the way talent-wise to Buffalo in the near future in the form of players like Baptiste.

The Sabres chose him in the third round of the 2013 NHL Draft. In the 2014-15 regular season, Baptiste tallied 32 goals and 32 assists in 53 games with the Otters and the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves. He has 11 goals and 9 assists in 15 OHL playoff games thus far.

Baptiste was one of the last players cut in tryouts for the Canadian team that went on to win the Gold Medal in the 2015 International Ice Hockey Federation World JuniorChampionship.

The Greyhounds also featured a future Sabre in right wing Justin Bailey. A Buffalo second-round pick in 2013, Bailey scored 34 goals and 35 assists in 57 games with the Greyhounds and the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. The Western New York native tallied 7 goals and 7 assists in 14 playoff games for the Greyhounds.

Defenseman Darnell Nurse, the Edmonton Oilers’ 2013 first-round draft pick, powered Team Canada to a 5-4 victory over Russia to win the Gold Medal at the International Ice Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in January.

“It’s the pinnacle of women’s basketball,” proud papa Richard Nurse told the hometown Hamilton Spectator before the game. “Outside of the Olympics there isn’t a bigger stage for women’s basketball than the NCAA championship.”

The Nurses are a close-knit, athletic family

Team Canada’s Darnell Nurse.

-and highly competitive. Father RichardNurse was a wide receiver for the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats; his wife, Cathy, was a stellar basketball player for Canada’s McMasterUniversity.

Their older daughter, Tamika, played basketball at the University of Oregon and Bowling Green State University. Richard Nurse’s brother, Roger, was a standout lacrosse player in Canada. Their sister, Raquel, was a Syracuse University hoops standout and is married to former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

In addition, he was named one of Canada’s best three players in the tournament along with Max Domi, a forward for the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League and a 2013 Arizona Coyotes first-round draft pick, and Sam Reinhart, a forward for the Western Hockey League’sKootenay Ice and a 2014 Buffalo Sabres first-rounder.

Monday’s win ended a five-year gold medal drought for Canada at the tourney for players under 20 years old, and the 19-year-old Nurse was a key component in the team winning the gold without a loss.

Monday night represented Mission Accomplished for Nurse. The nephew of retired Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb vowed to make Team Canada after not being named to the 2014 squad, a move that even stunned “Hockey Night in Canada” commentator Don Cherry.

Nurse is captain of the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.

The 2014 Canadian team finished fourth at the tournament played in Malmo, Sweden, and failed to medal.

“That is an absolute joke not to have Darnell Nurse out there,” the bombastic Cherry

Nurse appeared in two games for Edmonton in 2014-15.

said last year.

As for Nurse, he took the snub and being cut in training camp by Edmonton in 2013 hard. He used those experiences and being sent back to Sault Ste. Marie after playing two games for the Oilers this season as fuel to make Team Canada this year.

“Not being (in Edmonton) opens up opportunities like this, which I have been looking

forward to all year,” he told reporters at Team Canada’s training camp last month. “I am going to develop playing junior and hope to play in this tournament.”

And play he did. Nurse had one goal, no assists, and a plus-minus of +8 in seven games. He also got off 10 shots, several of them missiles fired while rushing the puck up ice. Opponents didn’t score while he was on the ice.

Apparently, there’s something about playing Russia that brings the best out of the Nurse family. Sarah Nurse, Darnell’s cousin and a forward for the University of Wisconsin women’s hockey team, scored a goal for Canada’s National Women’sDevelopment Team in a 5-1 win against Russia Sunday at the 2015 Nation’s Cup tournament in Germany.